THEOSOPHIA
A LIVING PHILOSOPHY FOR HUMANITY
Published every Two Months. Sponsored by an International Group of Theosophists
Objectives:
To disseminate the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom.
To uphold and promote the Original Principles of the modern Theosophical Movement,
as set forth by H. P. Blavatsky and her Teachers.
To challenge bigotry and superstition in every form.
To foster mutual understanding and co-operation among all students of Theosophy,
irrespective of their affiliation.
EDITOR: Boris de Zirkoff.
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Irene Ponsonby, Dr. Sven Eek, J. Emory Clapp, William L.
Biersach, Arthur L. Joquel.
ADVISORY BOARD: Col. J.M. Prentice, Jan H. Venema, Hendrik Oosterink, James L.
Harris, Richard H. Cutting, T. Marriott.
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None of the organized Theosophical Societies, as such, are responsible for any
ideas expressed in this magazine, unless contained in an official document. The
Editors are responsible for unsigned articles only.

*

A THOUGHT TO REMEMBER ...
The Abuse of Sacred Names and Terms.

Enq. Then, what I have heard, namely, that many of your Theosophical
writers claim to have been inspired by these Masters, or to have seen
and conversed with them, is not true?

Theo. It may or it may not be true. How can I tell? The burden
of proof rests with them. Some of them, a few - very few, indeed - have
distinctly either lied or were hallucinated when boasting of such inspiration;
others were truly inspired by great Adepts. The tree is known by its
fruits; and as all Theosophists have to be judged by their deeds and
not by what they write or say, so all Theosophical books must
be accepted on their merits, and not according to any claim to authority
which they may put forward.

Enq. But would Mdme. Blavatsky apply this to her own works -
the Secret Doctrine, for instance?

Theo. Certainly; she says expressly in the Preface that she gives
out the doctrines that she has learnt from the Masters, but claims no
inspiration whatever for what she has lately written. As for our best
Theosophists, they would also in this case far rather that the names
of the Masters had never been mixed up with our books in any way. With
few exceptions, most of such works are not only imperfect, but positively
erroneous and misleading. Great are the desecrations to which the names
of two of the Masters have been subjected. There is hardly a medium who
has not claimed to have seen them. Every bogus swindling Society, for
commercial purposes, now claims to be guided and directed by "Masters," often
supposed to be far higher than ours! Many and heavy are the sins of those
who advanced these claims, prompted either by desire for lucre, or irresponsible
mediumship. Many persons have been plundered of their money by such societies,
which offer to sell the secrets of power, knowledge, and spiritual truth
for worthless gold. Worst of all, the sacred names of Occultism and the
holy keepers thereof have been dragged in this filthy mire, polluted
by being associated with sordid motives and immoral practices, while
thousands of men have been held back from the path of truth and light
through the discredit and evil support which such shams, swindles, and
frauds have brought upon the whole subject. - H.P. Blavatsky, The
Key to Theosophy, pp. 300-301. [3]

*

ON THE THRESHOLD
OF TOMORROWBoris de Zirkoff

The restlessness and confusion of men's minds in the present-day world
is the direct result of a shattered and crumbling view of life.

The complacency of an outmoded religion, the false security of a selfish
social order based upon political slogans empty of spiritual content,
and the banality of quasi-ethical concepts rooted primarily in convenience
and the alleged superiority of might over right, these and other familiar
landmarks of a dying era are collapsing before our very eyes, and in
every part of the habitable world.

Many do not see it. Others, while cognizant of the fact, prefer to talk
about something else, rather than face the natural results from equally
natural causes, and to rebuild now their own lives upon foundations
and precepts which alone can provide spiritual security in a world of
endless change.

The minds of men the world over are gripped today in a fearful conflict
waged on the battlefield of their thoughts. It is this inner conflict
which is the cause of the crumbling of once proud human institutions,
and the collapse of a social structure that was supposed by so many to
have been the highest manifestation of "civilization" and "progress."

The mental and emotional climate of the race has experienced some revolutionary
changes. By means of the rapid developments of modern science - foreseen
and predicted by a number of mystics and occultists in recent centuries
- the entrenched materialism of a former school of thought has been rooted
out from its strongholds. The battering ram of widening and all-embracing
research has toppled the fortifications of our moulds of mind, and has
let in floods of light upon problems and domains of thought which the
all-powerful materialism of former centuries preferred to deny the very
existence of.

Generation after generation have been taught both in the Halls of Science
and in the privacy of their family circles - with exceptions far and
wide between - that the basis of nature is material, that matter is the
primary factor of all that is, that life is but a chance accident in
nature, and that reality consists of those tangible and wholly measurable
factors which can be demonstrated by the functions of the physical senses
alone.

But suddenly a gateway opened upon new and undreamt of vistas. We began
to feel a strong breeze blowing from an unsuspected portal rapidly flung
open. Before we had the time to turn round and adjust our mental astigmatism,
we found ourselves in the midst of a scientific cyclone which swept out
of sight and beyond the horizon all our most cherished ideas and concepts
of yore.

We found ourselves holding an "open house," not exactly of
our own choosing, to be sure, at which strange guests invaded the one-time
quiet premises. Hobnobbing with atomic bombs, radio waves, electronic
wave-packets, transmission frequencies, rocket propelled planes, guided
missiles, psychosomatic diagnoses, extra-sensory perceptions, and the
like, may have been exciting at first; but when the novelty of it all
wore off, it became only too apparent that our ways of thinking, our
modes of feeling, and our patterns of behavior, somehow or other were
unable to adjust themselves to the long-range global objectives demanded
by the introduction of these guests into the familiar circle of our everyday
contacts.

Trained, as we were, to regard matter as of primary importance, and
our five senses as paramount in the diagnosis of nature's mysteries,
we found ourselves utterly unfit to navigate upon uncharted seas, where
spiritual and quasi-occult agencies pervaded the [4] elements,
and global solutions were demanded of us, of us who had been taught to
think in terms of narrow political boundaries, entrenched party-politics,
and the two-by-four psychology of overworked patriotism and self-sufficiency.
And so our minds have in a very short time reached all advanced stage
of organized chaos.

To erect a new civilization upon the heaped-up rubble of an old one
is impossible. The building site has to be cleared in the first place.
To apply outworn methods characteristic of man's ignorance and selfishness
to the building of something presumably "new," is simply a
symptom of our inveterate habit of clinging to time-honored mental and
emotional moulds, even if their spiritual vacuity has been demonstrated
beyond any possible doubt by the irreducible logic of history.

To build a greater and nobler structure wherein the vaulting aspirations
of an awakening mankind may find a suitable dwelling place, there is
need of something else than "unilateral alliances," "raw
materials," "island bases," "universal military training," or
the hackneyed conferences and conventions wherein grandiloquent speechifying
is often followed by dramatic exits of delegations, attempting to play
upon the sordid stage of power-politics, the role of some heroic figure
from the Ring of Nibelungen.

Corrupt ideologies and false doctrines can never be overcome by violence,
whether physical or moral. They can be overcome only by doctrines and
ideas which raise the intellectual, ethical and spiritual pitch of mankind,
and inspire the minds and the hearts of men with universal objectives,
urging them to deeds of kindness and magnanimity.

The nations of today, and their leaders, and men of power and influence
must realize sooner or later the imperative need of spiritual values
as a foundation for action, reform, and reconstruction. With the departure
of the materialistic conception of nature into the limbo of exploded
myths, there is no other alternative but a spiritual re-valuation of
our objectives and methods, of our "ends and means," as Huxley
would say.

In the age of atomic power, there are at least three false conceptions
which must be given up and abandoned at the very outset. They are: armed
conflict between nations, narrow and exclusive nationalism, and racial
discrimination. Men and women of the dawning era will be forced by the
natural development of ideas to realize that military expeditions, armed
aggression, and imagined superiority of one group over another, are phantasms
of diseased imagination to be resolved and transmuted into the higher
ideas of inter-racial understanding, world community, international arbitration,
free exchange of the fruits of human endeavor, and the will to live together
in peace and integrity. It is either that or the end of "civilization" as
we understand this term. It is either that - and now - or the
extinction of the noblest hopes in the hearts of the millions, for the
expansion and awakening of a grander consciousness among men.

The leaders of mankind cannot remain any longer on the mere level of
military tactics, economic covenants, and secret pacts; they must of
necessity become students of at least the rudiments of true philosophy,
and begin to practice its ideals. Either that, or they will be replaced
in the natural development of the historic process, by men and women
whose hearts are actuated by greater ideals and nobler objectives.

We must find a formula whereby the integration of mankind into one family
can be accomplished with the least possible friction, and in the quickest
possible time. We must eradicate from men's minds the false doctrine
that war can ever settle any problem, or that coercion, physical or mental,
can ever "convert" people into another mode of thought. These
are tragic falsehoods preying upon human minds, [5] like obsessing
vampires, distorting our actions and our motives. No war his ever solved
any problem, as history stands witness to. No military dictatorship has
ever suppressed any ideas or convictions, however false or true they
may have been, as the history of ideas will show to any student.

The crisis of today is a crisis of human thinking, not solely a conflict
of mutually-excluding political and economic interests. If we are to
go up and forward, we must abandon our mental and emotional aggressiveness,
intolerance, superiority and exclusiveness. We must replace them with
universality, good-will, global consciousness, mutual understanding,
and the will to peace. Justice, integrity, kindness, forgiveness,
love of our fellow-men, charity and human dignity, must be made paramount
in our mutual relations, as men and as nations. They must be shown to
be symptoms of inner strength. Upon them can be reared a true
civilization, the civilization of the atomic age. The alternatives are
simple: One World - or None!

*

VIEWS
OF THE THEOSOPHISTSH.P. Blavatsky
(Excerpts from an article which originally appeared in The Spiritualist,
London, February 8, 1878. It establishes in a lucid and authoritative manner
the difference between the teachings of occultism and the views of modern Spiritualism.
- Editor)

Permit a humble Theosophist to appear for the first time in your columns,
to say a few words in defense of our beliefs. I see in your issue of
December 21st ultimo, one of your correspondents, Mr. J. Croucher, makes
the following very bold assertions:

"Had the Theosophists thoroughly comprehended the nature of the
soul and spirit, and its relation to the body, they would have known
that if the soul once leaves, it leaves for ever."

This is so ambiguous that, unless he uses the term "soul" to
designate only the vital principle, I can only suppose that he falls
into the common error of calling the astral body, spirit, and the immortal
essence, "soul." We Theosophists, as Col. Olcott has told you,
do vice versa.

Besides the unwarranted imputation on us of ignorance, Mr. Croucher
has an idea (peculiar to himself) that the problem which has heretofore
taxed the powers of the metaphysicians in all ages has been solved in
our own. It is hardly to be supposed that Theosophists or any others "thoroughly" comprehend
the nature of the soul and spirit, and their relation to the body. Such
an achievement is for Omniscience, and we Theosophists treading the path
worn by the footsteps of the old Sages in the moving sands of exoteric
philosophy, can only hope to approximate to the absolute truth. It is
really more than doubtful whether Mr. Croucher can do better, even though
an "inspirational medium,’’ and experienced "through constant
sittings with one of the best trance mediums" in your country. I
may well leave to time and Spiritual Philosophy to entirely vindicate
us in the far hereafter. When any OEdipus of this or the next century
shall have solved this eternal enigma of the Sphinx-man, every modern
dogma, not excepting some pets of the Spiritualists, will be swept away,
as the Theban monster, according to the legend, leaped from his promontory
into the sea, and was seen no more ...

Here is what Col. Olcott did say, double commas and all:

"That mediumistic physical phenomena are not produced by pure spirits,
but by 'souls' embodied or disembodied, and usually with the help of
Elementals."

Any intelligent reader must perceive that, in placing
the word "souls" in
quotation marks, the writer indicated that he was using it in a sense
not his own. As a Theosophist, he would more properly and philosophically
have said for himself "astral spirits" or "astral men," or
doubles. Hence, the criticism is wholly [6] without even a foundation
of plausibility. I wonder that a man could be found who, on so frail
a basis, would have attempted so sweeping a denunciation. As it is, our
President only propounded the trine of man, like the ancient and
Oriental Philosophers and their worthy imitator Paul, who held that the
physical corporeity, the flesh and blood, was permeated and so kept alive
by the Psyche, the soul or astral body. This doctrine, that man
is trine-spirit or Nous, soul and body-was taught by the
Apostle of the Gentiles more broadly and clearly than it has been by
any of his Christian successors (see 1 Thess., v.23).
But having evidently forgotten or neglected to "thoroughly" study
the transcendental opinions of the ancient Philosophers and the Christian
Apostle upon the subject, Mr. Croucher views the soul (Psyche) as
spirit (Nous) and vice versa.

The Buddhists, who separate the three entities in man (though viewing
them as one when on the path to Nirvana), yet divide the soul into several
parts, and have names for each of these and their functions. Thus confusion
is unknown among them. The old Greeks did likewise, holding that Psyche
was bios, or physical life, and it was thumos, or passional
nature, the animals being accorded but the lower faculty of the soul
instinct. The soul or Psyche is itself a combination, consensus or unity
of the bios, or physical vitality, the epithumia or concupiscible
nature, and the phrên, mens or mind. Perhaps the animus ought
to be included. It is constituted of ethereal substance, which pervades
the whole universe, and is derived wholly from the soul of the world
- Anima Mundi or the Buddhist Svabhavat - which is not spirit; though
intangible and impalpable, it is yet, by comparison with spirit or pure
abstraction, objective matter. By its complex nature, the soul may descend
and ally itself so closely to the corporeal nature as to exclude a higher
life from exerting any moral influence upon it. On the other hand, it
can so closely attach itself to the Nous or spirit, as to share its potency,
in which case its vehicle, physical man, will appear as a God even during
his terrestrial life. Unless such union of soul and spirit does occur,
either during this life or after physical death, the individual man is
not immortal as an entity. The Psyche is sooner or later disintegrated.
Though the man may have gained "the whole world," he
has lost his "soul." Paul, when teaching the anastasis, or
continuation of individual spiritual life after death, set forth that
there was a physical body which was raised in incorruptible substance.

The spiritual body
is most assuredly not one of the bodies, or visible or tangible
larvae, which form in circle-rooms, and are so improperly termed "materialized
spirits." When once the metanoia, the full developing of
spiritual life, has lifted the spiritual body out of the psychical
(the disembodied, corruptible, astral man, what Col. Olcott calls "soul"),
it becomes, in strict ratio with its progress, more and more an abstraction
for the corporeal senses. It can influence, inspire, and even communicate
with men subjectively; it can make itself felt, and even, in those
rare instances when the clairvoyant is perfectly pure and perfectly
lucid, be seen by the inner eye (which is the eye of the purified Psyche-soul).
But how can it ever manifest objectively?

It will be seen, then,
that to apply the term "spirit" to the materialized eidola of
your "form-manifestations" is grossly improper, and something
ought to be done to change the practice, since scholars have begun
to discuss the subject. At best, when not what the Greeks termed phantasma,
they are but phasma or apparitions.

In scholars, speculators,
and especially in our modern savants, the psychical principle
is more or less pervaded by the corporeal, and "the things of
the spirit are foolishness and impossible to be known" (1 Cor.,
ii.14). Plato was then right, in his way, in despising land-measuring,
geometry and arithmetic, for all these overlooked all high ideas. Plutarch
taught that at death Proserpine separated the body and the soul entirely,
after which the latter became a free and independent [7] demon
(daimon). Afterward the good underwent a second dissolution: Demeter
divided the Psyche from the Nous or Pneuma. The former was dissolved
after a time into ethereal particles-hence the inevitable dissolution
and subsequent annihilation of the man who at death is purely psychical;
the latter, the Nous, ascended to its higher divine power and became
gradually a pure, divine spirit. Kapila, in common with all Eastern
Philosophers, despised the purely psychical nature. It is this agglomeration
of the grosser particles of the soul, the mesmeric exhalations of human
nature imbued with all its terrestrial desires and propensities, its
vices, imperfections and weakness, forming the astral body, which can
become objective under certain circumstances, which the Buddhists call
the Skandhas (the groups), and Col. Olcott has for convenience termed
the "soul." The Buddhists and Brâhmans teach that the man’s
individuality is not secured until he has passed through and become
disembarrassed of the last of these groups, the final vestige of earthly
taint. Hence their doctrine of metempsychosis, so ridiculed and so
utterly misunderstood by our greatest Orientalists.

Even the physicists
teach us that the particles composing physical man are, by evolution,
reworked by nature into every variety of inferior physical form. Why,
then, are the Buddhists unphilosophical or even unscientific, in affirming
that the semi-material Skandhas of the astral man (his very ego, up
to the point of final purification) are appropriated to the evolution
of minor astral forms (which, of course, enter into the purely physical
bodies of animals) as fast as he throws them off in his progress toward
Nirvana? Therefore, we may correctly say, that so long as the disembodied
man is throwing off a single particle of these Skandhas, a portion
of him is being reincarnated in the bodies of plants and animals. And
if he, the disembodied astral man, be so material that "Demeter" cannot
find even one spark of the Pneuma to carry up to the "divine power," then
the individual, so to speak, is dissolved, piece by piece, into the
crucible of evolution, or, as the Hindus allegorically illustrate it,
he passes thousands of years in the bodies of impure animals. Here
we see how completely the ancient Greek and Hindu Philosophers, the
modern Oriental schools, and the Theosophists, are ranged on one side,
in perfect accord, and the bright array of "inspirational mediums" and "spirit
guides" stand in perfect discord on the other. Though no two of
the latter, unfortunately, agree as to what is and what is not truth,
yet they do agree with unanimity to antagonize whatever of the teachings
of the Philosophers we may repeat!

Let it not be inferred,
though, from this, that I, or any other real Theosophist, undervalue
true spiritual phenomena or philosophy, or that we do not believe in
the communication between mortals and pure Spirits, any less than we
do in communication between bad men and bad Spirits, or even of good
men with bad Spirits under bad conditions. Occultism is the essence
of Spiritualism, while modern or popular Spiritualism I cannot better
characterize than as adulterated unconscious Magic. We go so far as
to say that all the great and noble characters, all the grand geniuses,
the poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, all who have worked at any
time for the realization of their highest ideal, irrespective of selfish
ends-have been spiritually inspired; not mediums, as many Spiritualists
call them-passive tools in the hands of controlling guides-but incarnate,
illuminated souls, working consciously in collaboration with the pure
disembodied human and new-embodied high Planetary Spirits, for the
elevation and spiritualization of mankind. We believe that everything
in material life is most intimately associated with spiritual agencies.
As regards physical phenomena and mediumship, we believe that it is
only when the passive medium has given place, or rather grown into,
the conscious mediator, that he discerns between Spirits good and bad.
And we do believe, and know also, that while the incarnate man (though
the highest Adept) cannot vie in potency with the pure disembodied [8] Spirits,
who, freed of all their Skandhas, have become subjective to the physical
senses, yet he can perfectly equal, and can far surpass in the way
of phenomena, mental or physical, the average "Spirit" of
modern mediumship. Believing this, you will perceive that we are better
Spiritualists, in the true acceptation of the word, than so-called
Spiritualists, who, instead of showing the reverence we do to true
Spirits-Gods-debase the name of Spirit by applying it to the impure,
or at best, imperfect beings who produce the majority of the phenomena.

... while Mr. Croucher
sees and judges things through his emotional nature, the Philosophers
whom we study took nothing from any "glorious being" that
did not perfectly accord with the universal harmony, justice, and equilibrium
of the manifested plan of the Universe. The Hermetic axiom, "as
below, so above," is the only rule of evidence accepted by the
Theosophists. Believing in a spiritual and invisible Universe, we cannot
conceive of it in any other way than as completely dovetailing and
corresponding with the material, objective Universe; for logic and
observation alike teach us that the latter is the outcome and visible
manifestation of the former, and that the laws governing both are immutable.

... the imperfectly
developed man-child can no more exist under the conditions prepared
for the perfected types of its species, than can an imperfect plant
or animal. In infantile life the higher faculties are not developed,
but, as everyone knows, are only in the germ, or rudimentary. The babe
is an animal, however "angelic" he may, and naturally enough
ought to, appear to his parents. Be it ever so beautifully modeled,
the infant body is but the jewel-casket preparing for the jewel. It
is bestial, selfish, and, as a babe, nothing more. Little of even the
soul, Psyche, can be perceived except so far as vitality is concerned;
hunger, terror, pain and pleasure appear to be the principal of its
conceptions. A kitten is its superior in everything but possibilities.
The grey neurine of the brain is equally unformed. After a time mental
qualities begin to appear, but they relate chiefly to external matters.
The cultivation of the mind of the child by teachers can only affect
this part of the nature-what Paul calls natural or physical, and James
and Jude sensual or psychical. Hence the words of Jude, "psychical,
having not the spirit," and of Paul:

"The psychical
man receiveth not the things of the spirit, for to him they are foolishness;
the spiritual man discerneth."

It is only the man
of full age, with his faculties disciplined to discern good and evil,
whom we can denominate spiritual, noetic, intuitive. Children developed
in such respects would be precocious, abnormal abortions.

Why, then, should a
child who has never lived other than an animal life; who never discerned
right from wrong; who never cared whether he lived or died-since he
could not understand either of life or death-become individually immortal?
Man’s cycle is not complete until he has passed through the earth-life.
No one stage of probation and experience can be skipped over. He must
be a man before he can become a Spirit. A dead child is a failure of
nature-he must live again; and the same Psyche reenter the physical
plane through another birth. Such cases, together with those of congenital
idiots, are, as stated in Isis Unveiled, the only instances
of human reincarnation. If every child-duality were to be immortal,
why deny a like individual immortality to the duality of the animal?
Those who believe in the trinity of man know the babe to be but a duality-body
and soul-and the individuality which resides only in the psychical
is, as we have seen proved by the Philosophers, perishable. The completed
trinity only survives. Trinity, I say, for at death the astral form
becomes the outward body, and inside a still finer one evolves, which
takes the place of the Psyche on earth, and the whole is more or less
overshadowed by the Nous. Space prevented Col. Olcott from developing
the doctrine more fully, or he would have added that not even all of
the Elementaries (human) are annihilated. [9]

There is still a chance
for some. By a supreme struggle these may retain their third and higher
principle, and so, though slowly and painfully, yet ascend sphere after
sphere, casting off at each transition the previous heavier garment,
and clothing themselves in more radiant spiritual envelopes, until,
rid of every finite particle, the trinity merges into the final Nirvana,
and becomes a unity - a God.

A volume would scarce
suffice to enumerate all the varieties of Elementaries and Elementals;
the former being so called by some Kabalists (Henry Kunrath, for instance)
to indicate their entanglement in the terrestrial elements which hold
them captive, and the latter designated by that name to avoid confusion,
and equally applying to those which go to form the astral body of the
infant and to the stationary Nature Spirits proper. Éliphas Lévi, however,
indifferently calls them all "Elementary" and "souls." I
repeat again, it is but the wholly psychical disembodied astral man
which ultimately disappears as an individual entity. As to the component
parts of his Psyche, they are as indestructible as the atoms of any
other body composed of matter.

The man must indeed
be a true animal who has not, after death, a spark of the divine Ruach
or Nous left in him to allow him a chance of self-salvation. Yet there
are such lamentable exceptions, not alone among the depraved, but also
among those who, during life, by stifling every idea of an after existence,
have killed in themselves the last desire to achieve immortality. It
is the will of man, his all-potent will, that weaves his destiny, and
if a man is determined in the notion that death means annihilation,
he will find it so. It is among our commonest experiences that the
determination of physical life or death depends upon the will. Some
people snatch themselves by force of determination from the very jaws
of death, while others succumb to insignificant maladies. What man
does with his body he can do with his disembodied Psyche.

Nothing in this militates
against the images of Mr. Croucher’s children being seen in the Astral
Light by the medium, either as actually left by the children themselves,
or as imagined by the father to look when grown. The impression in
the latter case would be but a phasma, while in the former it
is a phantasma, or the apparition of the indestructible impress
of what once really was.

In days of old the "mediators" of
humanity were men like Chrishna, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Paul, Apollonius
of Tyana, Plotinus, Porphyry, and the like of them. They were Adepts,
Philosophers-men who, by struggling their whole lives in purity, study,
and self-sacrifice, through trials, privations and self-discipline,
attained divine illumination and seemingly superhuman powers. They
could not only produce all the phenomena seen in our times, but regarded
it as a sacred duty to cast out "evil spirits," or demons,
from the unfortunates who were obsessed-in other words, to rid the
medium of their days of the "Elementaries."

But in our time of
improved psychology every hysterical sensitive looms into a seer, and
behold! there are mediums by the thousand! Without any previous study,
self-denial, or the least limitation of their physical nature, they
assume, in the capacity of mouthpieces of unidentified and unidentifiable
intelligences, to outrival Socrates in wisdom, Paul in eloquence, and
Tertullian himself in fiery and authoritative dogmatism. The Theosophists
are the last to assume infallibility for themselves, or recognize it
in others; as they judge others, so they are willing to be judged.

In the name, then,
of logic and common sense, before bandying epithets, let us submit
our difference to the arbitrament of reason. Let us compare all things,
and, putting aside emotionalism and prejudice as unworthy of the logician
and the experimentalist, hold fast only to that which passes the ordeal
of ultimate analysis. - New York, Jan. 14th,
1878. [10]

*

"AT
A GREAT PRICE ..."L. Furze Morrish

The Christian Apostle St. Paul made a number of significant
statements, indicating clearly that he was one of those who "seek
the Way to Reality" in every age. His saying, "At a great price
obtained I this freedom," and his confirmatory statement, "To
the Jews I am become as a Jew, to those without the law as without the
law ... I am become all things to all men," are clear proofs of
his knowledge of the "Road." Similar principles underlie practically
the whole of the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, and the teaching of Gautama
the Buddha at a later date. The Gita's main theme is impersonal performance
of duty without allowing oneself to become identified with sects, parties,
creeds or individuals. The Buddha said exactly the same thing in other
words.

"Freedom" - a much abused word - is the goal of the species
called Man. "Realization" is another word to describe the same
thing, because there can be no realisations at all at any level, until
the individual has become relatively free from that which has to be realised.
A mechanic cannot produce the simplest gadget if he is identified with
the instrument. The scientist cannot observe anything accurately unless
he is detached from that which he is trying to observe. In the spiritual
life, so called, the same rule operates. There must be detachment from
the non-self, the sphere of operations, or whatever it may be. This,
of course, strikes a blow at the "loyalist," but all loyalties
are limitations, even though they may be useful steps to added realization. "Freedom" and "Loyalty" are
the two parallel modes which make up Reality, as heads and tails of a
coin. By Freedom we realise more of the Universal Self; by Loyalty we
devote ourselves to that which has been realised. The great thing is
to know when to stop, and this rule applies to everything else as well.

Aldous Huxley, member of one of Britain's greatest scientific and philosophical
families, has made a striking statement in his book "Ends and Means," which
he calls "An Enquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods
employed for their Realization." His departure from the materialism
and blindness of his namesakes has been equally striking. In this book,
Chapter 1, he states that all the "bewildering multiplicity of ideals" makes
up part of the "fruit of particular social circumstances." He
says that "all the ideals of human behavior formulated by those
who have been most successful in freeing themselves from the prejudices
of their time and place are singularly alike." This, of course,
is almost pure Krishnamurti, or Buddha, or Christ, or Krishna, or any
of the great philosophers with an idealistic background. Let us note
the significant fact. I t is the "freeing of oneself" which
matters. Huxley goes on to mention various recent ideal types of humanity.
He refers to the "honnete homme," or man of honor, of the seventeenth
century; the "philosophe" of the eighteenth; the "respectable
man" of the nineteenth. He then points out that the ideal man of
the free philosophers, the mystics and founders of religions is the "non-attached
man." This means, he says, "non-attached to his bodily sensations
and lusts. Non-attached to his craving for power and possessions. Non-attached
to the objects of these various desires. Non-attached to his anger and
hatred. Non-attached to his exclusive loves."

This is where we come to the Theosophical Man, or those who claim to
be students of the "Ancient Wisdom." Here, if anywhere today,
one might expect to find non-attached men, for are not such students
seeking the Way to Reality? However, one is bound to admit that it is
here that we find some of the most extravagant attachments - [11] almost
fanatical loyalties. We find groups attached to this or that "Movement" and "Up
With (or Down With) Blavatsky, or Leadbeater or Judge, etc., Movement." We
find greater or lesser groups trying to persuade themselves, and others,
that one or the other of these various "leaders" has spoken
the last word on Truth, and attacking with extreme violence those who
belong to other groups. We find Covina versus Adyar versus Canada versus
this or that, each group claiming to be the "tolerant" one,
but with the right to reprove all the others for "straying." The
vehemence and lack of simple charity with which some of these attacks
are made suggests that those who make them have failed to grasp the first
and most elementary step in spirituality, namely freedom from minor attachments,
called "Discrimination," and that there is a lot of egotism
making itself felt.

Freedom brings true power. When one has been attacked and found that
he has no feelings on the subject; when he has been disappointed in his
attachments and "got over it" without much fuss; when he has "seen
through" the false claims of various adored persons and not felt
any inclination to "resign" with much show of moral indignation;
when he has lost various loved objects and persons but not become identified
with his feelings about them - then he has begun to feel what Freedom
really means, and can say with St. Paul, "At a great price obtained
I this freedom." He will then feel a surge of inner power which
the attached individual can never feel except when stimulated by something
or somebody outside himself. He no longer fears. He is no longer afraid
what other people are saying about him; he no longer fears death and
therefore is not bothered about it; he no longer fears that some "Movement" will
be upset and his universe disappear.

This sense of growing freedom develops usually in stages. Some few may
possibly achieve it in on one bound, according to Krishnamurti's claim,
but they must at some time in the past, as Egos, have built up the necessary
power to do so. Each stage is followed automatically by a test of some
sort to see if one's new sense of freedom is genuine, or just a passing
piece of egoism and enthusiasm. Every action has an equal and opposite
reaction. Therefore each stage brings its own test either from one's
own "lower nature," or from the "Dark Powers," whichever
phrase one may prefer. There are "Dark Powers" apart from the
individual. These may comprise other individuals of various kinds, either
persons who are naturally malevolent, or just backward and prejudiced,
but no Power, however dark, can affect a person except through that person's
own personal nature. External "darkness" can only affect us
through the darkness in ourselves. If "our whole body is full of
light," then nothing but light can affect us. This enlightened state
is "Freedom."

To those who have glimpsed real spiritual freedom it seems amazing that
anyone could ever get emotionally worked up over a matter of whether
somebody uses ritual or not. The elaborate "politeness" with
which some persons, who do not like religious ritual, explain to Liberal
Catholics that "ritual is not necessary" suggests to a psychologist
that the non-ritualist his developed an unconscious defense-complex of
some sort. All these arguments have their equal and opposite arguments. "The
Catholic Church has exploited humanity for centuries and perpetrated
abominable atrocities which can be vouched for historically. The Catholic
Church ritual must therefore be evil and should not be given any encouragement." The
opposite side then replies. "Puritanism was the founder of our present
competitive commercial system, which has so exploited human beings that
it has divided the world into two rival camps, which may end in the extinction
of civilization. Therefore "Puritanical Non-ritual' must be evil
and should not be encouraged." The arguments [12] are both
fantastic, and simply emerge from the unrealized subconscious mind. It
is this miss of unrealized material in the unconscious which has to be
pulled out and recognized before anything like Freedom call be enjoyed.
This painful process is obviously what St. Paul meant when be referred
to the "great price." Realization implies just this. Removal
of these bug-bears of existence on the relatively lower levels brings
a sense of relief and joy. This is the "bliss" referred to
by all mystics.

The above is the way of "Raja Yoga" and of Yoga in general,
but there is also a way of devotion and loyalty by which the individual
becomes aware of ever-widening loyalties. He works through devotional
loyalty and not discrimination, as such, although his increasing depth
of understanding is a kind of unconscious discrimination. This kind of
devotional mystic grows by the very intensity of his devotion. He widens
more or less unconsciously as he expands in volume, so to speak. The
narrower loyalties of the past are simply forgotten. Often the devotee
is not able to visualize himself as bound by past limitations, and may
even deny that he ever was bound by them. The pious and devoted religious
mystic of today will frequently gloss over the past horrors committed
by his Church or other group. He is just unaware of them and usually
attributes reminders about them to the spiteful invention of "enemies." This "burning
up" process by which the past becomes lost or destroyed, is probably
part of what is meant in Christianity by "forgiveness of sins." It
is said that, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white "is
snow." This saying often arouses indignation in the breast of the
intellectual student, who refers to the Law of Karma and asks how can
these things be wiped out just as if they had never occurred? Evidently
they can be wiped out, and it is probable that the very burning intensity
of the mystical path of devotion acts as a self-consuming flame. Compensation
is apparently made in this way, whereas the other kind of spiritual seeker
- the one who follows the way of detachment and is trying to escape from
the less to the more knowingly, by a process of dissociating himself
- has to face up to his past and work through it consciously. The two
modes are parallel. Both achieve the same end by opposite methods. Non-attachment
ends eventually in realizing "nothing but the One." Attached
loyalty ends eventually in "absorption" in the same "One." The
former works inward, the latter outward, but some kind of non-attachment
applies to both, because the devotional mystic sooner or later recognizes
the impersonality of That which arouses his devotion. Both become "Freedom." The
former path leads to "Freedom FROM"; the latter ends in the "Freedom
OF." When a man is given the freedom "of" a city, it means
that, in theory at any rate, he can roam at large all over the place
without let or hindrance. He has no boundaries to his movement. In the
opposite sense Freedom FROM restrictions comes to the same thing. The
end is therefore FREEDOM in both cases.

The moral of this is that those who are devoted to some group-loyalty
should realize its limitations and avoid attacking other group-loyalties,
which spring from the same impulse, while those who prefer the road of
non-attachment should make allowances for the attachments of those who
are still bound by such things. The end, so far as the theosophical movement
is concerned, might be some measure of "peace." [13]

*

IN COMPANY
WITH THE SEARCHERS*A REVIEW
Katherine Heck
(*The Searchers, by Dr. Gustaf Stromberg, David McKay Co., Philadelphia,
Pa., 1948, $3.00. Can be obtained from the Editorial Offices of Theosophia,
or the Port Orient Book Co., Box 277, Pt. Loma Station, San Diego 6, California.)

If there is any truth in the old occult maxim that the burden is never
heavier than the traveler can bear, or that the wind is tempered to the
shorn lamb, perhaps it is safe to say that every century gets the books
it deserves. If this be so, there are two recently published books which
are going to raise the twentieth century's batting average quite considerably.
If this century ultimately proves worthy of Lecomte du Nouy's Human
Destiny and Gustaf Stromberg's The Searchers, the present
muddling on the threshold of the about-to-be-known will be well worth
the shattered nerves of today's thinkers .

For the librarians, The Searchers is going to pose quite a problem
in classification. Dr. Stromberg is a scientist of note, much of the
book meticulously reflects this. But it also reveals a scientist turned
philosopher, and it gives intimations of a philosopher who has come to
understand true religion. A comparison with Plato's Dialogues suggests
itself very strongly. In both instances there is a hero, and that hero
is Man, the Thinker, the Searcher. There are so many places in Dr. Stromberg's
book where the reader is swept by the heady wind of truth, where he can
almost touch Reality, where he seems to be raised up and out and beyond
his everyday littleness, that there is a constant echo of Plato in his
mind. This is not to say that it is equal to Plato. It is somewhat uneven,
actually, but many of its faults are those of Plato too. Stromberg can
slay his straw-stuffed materialist as deftly as ever Plato reduced his
model skeptic to smoldering silence. But this is a book for twentieth
century thinking. Its solid scientific approach, its ready use of the
present day scientific, philosophic and religious vocabularies, and its
utter sincerity, will give it a weight and a power in the world of thought
which may well be more than either its author or its publisher expect.

The reader should not be misled by the earlier chapters of the book.
Both Plato and Stromberg have run up a sort of fictional clothes-line
to hang their thoughts, arguments, and conversations on. It is obvious
that Dr. Stromberg is unused to the fictional media and during the period
when he is laboriously stringing his "clothes-line " he may
lose some of his best readers. But his chapter on "Expanding Waves
and Small Particles," in which he defines, defends and succeeds
in clearly explaining the theory of "emergent energy," is a
definite contribution to scientific and philosophic thought.

In discussing points and fields of energy, Dr. Berman, the physician-psychologist-philosopher
who is obviously fronting for Dr. Stromberg, says:

"'An element of energy may disappear from an atom and later appear
at another place with a retention of its characteristics, but in transit
this energy is entirely in a potential form, a form that mathematically
can be described as a field with certain structural properties. If we
assume that there are moving particles guided by a field we must, as
Dr. Wilson said, think of the energy as being partly in the form of a
field and partly in another and more concentrated form. When the energy
element actually does something, the effect is entirely in the concentrated
form. Theoretical physicists object to a mixing of the two forms, and
I therefore can see no reason why they should object to the assumption
that the energy element in transit is entirely in the extended
field form. It should be noted that the concentrated form can only exist
for exceedingly short moments, represented by the time it takes a particle
to act on our sense organs or instruments.'" (p. 74.)

Further on, after reasserting his recurring theme that all our ways
of [14] describing properties of anything are due to using constructs
of our own minds, and that actually the physical scientists of today
in all fields of research are engaged in meticulously measuring shadows
(a philosophic concept which underlies the entire book), Dr. Berman continues:

"'... I prefer to think of an electron and its field as two different
aspects of the same entity ... These two aspects never occur together,
so that we can observe a field or its associated corpuscle, but never
both at the same time. When the electron appears, its field of force
disappears instantaneously, an idea in harmony with the instantaneous
disappearance of a light impulse when a photon is absorbed."' (p.
77.)

With this doctrine of energy emerging into manifestation from a world
which is non-physical, or, as Sir James Jeans claims, a world beyond
space and time, Dr. Stromberg is able to advance a logical and scientific
explanation for the soul. Discussing man's "memory field," he
says:

"'When a man dies, his brain field contracts and his brain disintegrates
quickly, since its structure is no longer sustained by its organizing
field. This field contains all the memories of the man, his soul, if
you want to call it so. Where does it go to? Like the other fields of
which we have spoken it goes to a world beyond space and time. It goes
to the same world from where it originally came, the world where life
itself has its origin. Since it has no longer any field structure, we
should not call it a field at all, and the only name we can give it is
a soul.'" (pp. 197-98.)

Again and again it is stressed in this book, both objectively and subjectively,
that we must have a new method of thinking, so as to cope with this new
ante-chamber to Reality, in which we are at present groping.

In the matter of ethics in this new world, Dr. Stromberg, who has apparently
by personal experience found and re-stated many of the ancient teachings
of the Hindu philosopher-psychologists, also finds, as have all searcher's
after Truth, that selfishness is suicide; that love, impersonal but sincere
and with growing understanding of our fellow-men, will be the only guarantee
that civilized man will see this century out. To quote again:

"I am sure we are entering a new era in the history of the human
race. I agree with Dr. Davis that in this new era mankind is doomed to
destruction if we cannot raise the ethical level of all the peoples on
the earth. It is a formidable and to some people an apparently hopeless
task, but it is the most important one mankind has ever faced. Even our
little group can exert its influence, not only in its fight against ignorance
but also in the struggle between good and evil. In my opinion a thinking
man has greater potential powers than the greatest armies of the world.
But his thinking and learning may debase him, if they are not coupled
with love for his fellow men. If our actions are governed by selfish
motives alone, the only laws of humanity will be those of the jungle,
where you must kill or be killed. But I am sure that a higher power than
that of man governs the world.' " (pp. 108-09.)

There is in this last paragraph a statement which, I feel, points to
the way in which the majority of us can serve humanity at this point. "Even
our little group can exert its influence ..." This in a sense is
one of the most constructive suggestions in the whole book. More groups,
harmoniously thinking, more individuals, expanding their consciousness
towards the World of Tomorrow, are desperately needed to dispel the horrendous
shadows of this "unreal" material world of ours.

The "Epilogue" of Dr. Stromberg's book deserves special study.
The reader will find in it age-old spiritual concepts couched in scientific
language. We note with pleasure the author's reference to "all the
memories of our last and our previous lives," suggesting as it does
a background of former existences. As all great men, the author has the
courage of his convictions.

The Searchers, we predict, will have more than one edition. Few
other scientific works are as rich in worthwhile material. The book is
a bridge between the world of science and the world of religion, in its
truest meaning. Dr. Stromberg has produced a work of lasting value, and
has advanced the cause of human enlightenment by a number of momentous
steps towards a spiritual outlook on nature. [15]

*

A CAMPAIGN OF FEAR
- AND A CRUSADE OF LOVEPolly Carr

A pale, gentle Jesuit priest in Italy today is waging, tirelessly and passionately,
a "Crusade of Love."

Father Riccardo Lombardi tells the people: "Our past was terrible,
because we failed to love. Our present is fearful because love is buried.
Let us, then, again find love."

Concurrently, there is going forward today a campaign of fear which is one
implicit in scientific facts. Facts about the atom-bomb. They are available
to anyone who wishes to learn them. They are not pleasant.

They are symbolic of our anxious times, these two crusades - and of the
fearful crisis which is upon us. Will men and nations at last go forward
toward becoming more fully human - toward learning to live together? Or will
they yet again fall upon each other and rend each other, and the fabric and
structure of human society.

Dr. Stafford Warren, Dean of UCLA's new Medical school, and medical advisor
both to the wartime Manhattan Project and the post-war Bikini atom bomb tests,
call tell you all about it. He is waging a one-man "Campaign of Fear" -
to impress upon people's minds just what an atomic war means.

Not only the vanquished, but also the victor, would be destroyed in all
atomic war: that is the burden of Dr. Warren's message. If not outright,
then inexorably, later. If not by direct retaliation, with atom-bombs from
the foe, then slowly, through succeeding decades, by contamination from radioactivity
released into the higher atmosphere by the victor's own bombs.

Only one atom bomb, the smallest that can be made, sends into the sub-stratosphere,
when it is detonated, radioactive particles equivalent to the Gamma radiation
given off by thousands of tons of radium. And such is the lasting power of
this poison, that even after one century this is still equivalent to nearly
half a ton of radium radiation.

When enough atom bombs are exploded to destroy a nation, a fearful amount
of this poisonous radioactivity would be released. And it would descend,
at a time over which we have no control - in amounts over which we have no
control - at places we cannot choose. It would fall in rain; soaking into
the earth, poisoning it and the foodstuffs which grow upon it.

Nothing call be done to counteract this radioactivity. Our own future generations,
as well as the enemy's, will die through contamination of water and earth
and foodstuffs.

That is the "Campaign of Fear" - a campaign to make the whole
world see the "no-one can win" aspect of atom-bomb warfare, to
make it crystal clear at last that we are at each other's mercy.

And this is where Father Lombardi comes in.

Maybe Father Lombardi has an answer. An answer so simple that our intellectuals,
our political leaders, our scientists, haven't thought of it.

Simple, yes. But not easy. Father Lombardi's answer is "Love."

Now forty, Father Lombardi was born to a middle-class family in Naples.
As a student at the University of Padua, he began preaching. Today he preaches
and he prays - and that is his life.

He prepares for each speech with hours and hours of prayer. Sometimes, as
he kneels in prayer, he faints. But when he finds himself upon the rostrum
a great power comes to him - the words pour forth with such beauty and passion
that listeners weep. Not a few Communists who have come to jeer - to "puncture
the bubble of Father Lombardi" - remain to listen in silence, to weep
- and to join the Crusade.

Obviously, Father Lombardi is not tile usual kind of priest. He is more [16] the
St. Francis of Assisi kind. But he is also a product of his own time. As
for his own idea of what he is, Father Lombardi says: "It is not I who
do these things. It is Jesus."

"I feel Jesus' presence," says Father Lombardi simply.

Standing before a crowd in Milan, the tired, unimpressive, nervous-looking
little man said: "A stone begins rolling this moment, here in Milan.
It will go through the Italian cities, villages and regions. Then to the
outside world and to the end of time. For five centuries, men have tried
to make the world fit for heroes. The result is that angry individualism
and angry collectivism stand growling at each other. A generation of dwarfs
is looking to the atom bomb that may destroy all humanity'"

But Father Lombardi continues, "There are immense treasures of holiness
dispersed here and there. Perfection is no longer in the mountains with hermits,
in the convent with nuns. It is in the streets, in the banks, in the shops,
the trains and trolleys." And he points out how last week the Roman
trolley-car drivers gave a whole of one day's pay to the poor - although
that meant a day of starvation.

Yes, Father Lombardi is a remarkable priest. And he declares: "A new
age approaches. You were born to see the age when wealth will be voluntarily
and freely bent to the common god without the need of violence, but through
love."

The rich find small comfort in Father Lombardi. Prince Ludovici Chigi-Albani,
an exalted Catholic layman, Grand-master of the Knights of Malta, once offered
to finance his speaking tours. The little priest told the Prince: "Do
not think that Priests will ever again die, as they did in the French Revolution,
merely in defense of the rich man's privilege. The wealthy, I'm sorry, have
much to suffer. Its hard to part with one's goods. But if the wealthy overcome
the temptation of their wealth, they will find a bright fire leaping up in
their breasts, and they will know happiness."

"Selfishness, vainglory, economic injustice, must be destroyed through
love, not violence. Let us love again. Let us love our neighbors as ourselves."

Here then is our problem: we are faced with a choice between the inevitable
destruction emphasized by the Campaign of Fear, and perhaps the only solution,
that preached by Father Lombardi in his Crusade of Love.

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